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The Three-Pointer: Bulls gore spent Celtics

The Celtics locker room was quiet. Many of the players already had left, silently filing out without any expression on their faces.

Yet they didn't have to say anything. Doc Rivers summed it up in just one sentence.

“We got our butts kicked tonight in every fashion,” the coach said after his team’s 96-83 loss to the Bulls Thursday night. (Recap.)

The Celtics relinquished control over this game just two minutes into the first quarter. They gave up their only lead, 2-0, and chased the Bulls the rest of the night. Chicago's Luol Deng scored a game-high 25 points and Derrick Rose added 17 thanks to an explosive fourth quarter.

The Celtics, on the other hand, struggled to be an offensive threat. Ray Allen scored eight points (4-for-10 FG) while Rajon Rondo went scoreless in the final 12 minutes.

The fatigue of playing back-to-back games with an injured squad and the energy of the Bulls both seemed to contribute to the outcome. But the Celtics pointed the finger only at themselves.

“You know, we don’t make excuses,” Paul Pierce said. “We feel like we’re at home, we should be a better team at home than what we’ve been playing as of late, and we should win these types of games regardless of how many games. I mean, we play three or four games in a row and we come home, we need to make this building a place for teams to feel like they can’t win, and we haven’t been doing that as of late.”

The Celtics lost both of their home games this week and fell to 11-6 at the TD Garden. Here are three things we learned from a night when the Celtics appeared to need the three off-days that will be coming their way prior to the arrival of the Mavericks in Boston on Monday:

THIS WASN'T ABOUT REVENGE

The Bulls said this game was not about revenge. It had nothing to do with triple-overtime contests. A Game 7 defeat was not on their minds.

“It's in the past, so we're just focusing on right now,” Bulls forward Joakim Noah said.

Thursday night was about making a statement. No matter how many playoff series the Celtics had won, and regardless of how badly the C's had beat them this season (an average of 27 points in two games), the Bulls set out to prove they could win right here, right now.

Deng's 16 points in the first half set the tone for the rest of the night.

“Deng is very good over the years, and over the past few years he's shown what he can do for that team,” Pierce said. “His improved jump shot from the mid-range, you have to honor that, and I didn't do a good job of honoring that tonight, and he knocked it down all night.”

The Bulls put the past behind them to send a new message on Thursday. By the end of 48 minutes, the Celtics had heard it loud and clear.

“They came out and jumped us from the start,” C's center Kendrick Perkins said. “They were hitting us first, instigating. We were retaliators. They just came out with it on their mind that they were going to beat us, and they did.”

IS HELP ON THE WAY?

After battling through a string of injuries, Doc Rivers hopes to have some of his players back sooner rather than later.

Rivers expressed his hope before the game that Rasheed Wallace (foot) will be back on Monday, or Wednesday at the latest. He also said Kevin Garnett (knee) could return as early as next Friday.

Even though the Celtics aren't blaming their two consecutive home losses on injuries, they certainly could use a few more healthy bodies in the lineup.

“We just have a lot of injuries right now,” Rivers said. “When you have a lot of injuries, when three of your top six players go out, you know, pick any team you want and it's going to be tough. Like I said a few days ago, we want to win all those games. And we’re working our way through it, we’re doing OK, but we want to do even better.”

On a positive note for the Celtics, Glen Davis is playing through a sore thumb (the same one he broke earlier in the season) and gave a hustling effort to post six points and eight rebounds in 26 minutes.

Marquis Daniels (thumb) also met with Celtics trainers on Thursday and will swap his hard cast for a soft cast in one to two weeks. He still projects a return around the All-Star Break.

Not only was Doc Rivers ejected from the game, he was fined $25,000 on Wednesday. Davis was on board to help out his coach, that is, until he heard the grand total.

"I told Doc I was going to help him out. I didn't know it was that much," Davis said, laughing. "I already got fined once this year [after breaking his thumb in a fight], I'm not trying to get fined no more. But I'm going to help Doc out, that's my man."

Surely Davis could get his teammates to chip in, right?

"We're going to start with KG," he said with a chuckle, "Probably end there."

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